On Wednesday morning, I got up early at Ghaftayn rest house to see what passage there had been over-night. These desert stops have highly variable windfalls of migrants during the passage seasons. One morning can be heaving while another can have virtually nothing. The same goes for the rarity of the birds. This was only […]
Category: Blogs
Short-toed Snake Eagle – Ash Shargiyah Development Company Farm
Whilst birding Ash Shargiyah Development Company Farm, near Jubail on 11 September 2015 I saw a juvenile Short-toed Snake Eagle over one of the spray fields. The bird dropped down behind the horizon and looked like it may have landed in the field. We drove around and saw the bird take off and fly away […]
Águila crestuda negra (Black-Hawk Eagle) Spizaetus tyrannus
El Águila crestuda negra (Spizaetus tyrannus), también conocida como el águila tirana, es una especie de ave Accipitriforme de la familia Accipitridae. Se trata de un ave rapaz neotropical ampliamente distribuida por la América Central y del Sur. Se puede observar desde México hasta la zona central del Perú, el sur de Brasil y en […]
Dowkah delivers again
My Eid trip lasted from Tuesday afternoon until Saturday evening. It involved 3500 kilometres of travel and took me to several birding locations. This and the next four blogs will chronicle the results.I headed north out of Salalah on Tuesday and reached one of my favourite birding locations, Dowkah desert farm, with time to bird […]
It is the end of September already!
I am on vacation. Here’s a poem by Sara Teasdale entitled September Midnight: Lyric night of the lingering Indian Summer, Shadowy fields that are scentless but full of singing, Never a bird, but the passionless chant of insects, Ceaseless, insistent. The grasshopper‘s horn, and far-off, high in the maples, The […]
Purple Swamphens in Saudi Arabia
Purple Swamphen Porphyrio porphyrio has been split into five species by IOC 5.3 largely in accordance with Sangster 1998 and Garcia & Trewick 2015 into 5 species. These splits will be followed by OSME and means that Grey-headed Swamphen P. poliocephalus is by far the main species in the Region, comprising the nominate, caspius and […]
Eagles and water birds at Raysut
I managed a second late afternoon out birding during the week on Wednesday. I chose Raysut settling pools. This is much more interesting that this time last year as the habitat is better. Last autumn all the water was retained within concrete bound pools. For the past few months the ones on the far east […]
Indian Reef Herons and Gull-billed Terns – Al Khobar Wader Roost South
A trip to the al Khobar Wader Roost South at the weekend was not very successful as the tide was about as far out as it could be. My timing was limited as I had to drop the family off at friends and this was the only time I could visit. There were still a […]